Accelerator and Beam Physics

NIU is home to one of the best university accelerator physics programs in the nation. The program benefits from the close proximity of major accelerator research facilities at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. The faculty members associated with the program collaborate with these laboratories and with colleagues from around the world in high-priority accelerator projects and experiments. They also teach accelerator and beam physics courses at NIU.

Accelerator and Beam Physics Research Activities at NIU

The NIU accelerator and beam physics group focuses on diverse aspects of theoretical, computational and experimental particle beam physics:

Development of cross-disciplinary techniques of nonlinear dynamics and their application to charged-particle beams, including applications of symplectic geometry in (and numerical methods for) Hamiltonian dynamics leading to experimental verification.

Formation of a research laboratory on the NIU campus with an electron gun for testing and commissioning new instrumentation.

Development of precision storage rings and unique beam lines.

High-statistical tests of fundamental symmetries and experimental verifications of the Standard Model of particle physics.

Examinations of future accelerator facilities for the U.S. and Europe (CERN).

Space-Charge Algorithm

Research at NIU has revealed that the hierarchies of temporal and spatial scales are critically important drivers of the evolution of beams with space charge: details do matter. Consequently, we began intensive efforts to develop a new space-charge algorithm that preserves these hierarchies while still enabling efficient computations. The underlying methodology is multiresolution analysis, e.g., the application of wavelets.

Symplectic Dynamics

The study of Hamiltonian systems in general led to the development of two seemingly different branches of mathematics: the theory of dynamical systems and symplectic geometry. Both fields have undergone dramatic development, and it is becoming clear that there is a common core which could lead to a new field called "symplectic dynamics." One of the best test beds of this new field is the accelerator (or particle beams in general), and this connection is being investigated at NIU.

The NIU Department of Physics offers graduate-level courses and degree programs in accelerator and beam physics. Candidates for the degrees of Master of Science in physics and Doctor of Philosophy in physics with an accelerator and beam physics emphasis must meet the general requirements set forth by the Department of Physics for these degrees. They're expected to take accelerator/beam-related coursework as a major part of their electives.

Courses Offered

Elective courses relevant to accelerator and beam physics include:

PHYS 659 Special Problems (1-10 credits).

PHYS 673 Beam Physics I (3 credits).

PHYS 683 Beam Physics II (3 credits).

PHYS 790 Special Topics in Physics (1-6 credits).

Accelerator and beam physics students often attend the U.S. Particle Accelerator School (USPAS), which is held twice annually. USPAS offers many higher-level graduate physics courses in the discipline. NIU credit for participation in USPAS courses can be arranged through the Department of Physics with sufficient notice.

Hardware

Our group is equipped with a Beowulf cluster. It consists of 56 dual processor nodes connected through a 100 Mbit network. The operating system is Fedora Linux, and the installed software includes up-to-date Intel Fortran 90 and GNU C++/g77 compilers, PV-WAVE, ROOT, PAW analysis packages, LATEX and OpenOffice word processors.

CONDOR batch system and support for LAM/MPI application allows effective utilization of cluster resources:

Software

We have 21 licenses of the PV-WAVE software. You can use PV-WAVE for visualization and analysis of data. It has been used in many fields of science (mainly physics and engineering) and has a very good track record. It can be used on different platforms (Windows or Linux) and works in command-line or graphic environments.

ROOT: a free platform independent analysis tool developed at CERN. Suitable for processing large amounts of data.